Follow Your Intuition When Necessary

Xuefeng

Humans have six senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and spiritual perception. Intuition, often referred to as the sixth sense, is the most basic level of spiritual perception.

On the afternoon of November 2, 2006, I suddenly felt uneasy. At that moment, I was concerned about my wife, who was on a bus traveling from XX to XX. My intuition told me that something serious was going to happen to the bus she was on. I immediately prayed to the Greatest Creator: “Almighty God, my wife is incredibly important to me. Please don’t let anything bad happen to the bus she is on. I beg you, God! Amen!”

My wife arrived home safely. After she walked into the living room, I asked her how the trip had gone and if anything had happened about 80 kilometers from XX. She said, “About 70 to 80 kilometers from XX, the tire blew out.” I asked for more details, and she explained, “It was really dangerous. I had been sitting right above the tire that exploded, but all of a sudden, I started to feel anxious and uncomfortable, so I moved to a seat in front. About ten minutes later, there was a loud bang, and the tire under my original seat exploded. It blew a big hole under the seat, and even the metal flew off…”

Initially, I thought the bus would flip over, but instead, the rear-right tire burst. Fortunately, my wife moved away just in time. There weren’t many passengers on the bus, and there was even a newlywed couple. This story is true, and anyone interested can verify it.

Now, let’s consider this phenomenon: why did I suddenly feel uneasy and immediately pray to God? And more importantly, why did my wife suddenly feel anxious and change her seat without any apparent reason?

This is a kind of feeling, and both my wife and I acted on it. Of course, the credit goes to the Greatest Creator.

A similar incident once occurred in the United States. The police were trying to locate a criminal and had narrowed it down to one of three areas, but they couldn’t pinpoint the exact location. A seasoned detective, deep in thought, stared at a map and suddenly pointed to a spot, saying, “The criminal is right here.” The police moved in, and sure enough, they caught the criminal at the spot the detective had indicated. When asked how he knew, the detective replied, “No reason—my intuition told me.”

In late 1998, an article titled “Based on Intuition, I Concluded He Was Innocent” was published in the Procuratorate Daily. It told the story of Mr. Thomas, a juror in a child molestation case. Initially, he gave in to the opinions and pressure of other jurors, reluctantly voting for a guilty verdict. However, he couldn't shake the feeling that the verdict was wrong, which tormented him. Eventually, this frugal elderly man used his own money to hire a lawyer to appeal the case for the defendant, Cherwack, who had already been sentenced to ten years in prison. The appellate court overturned the original verdict, and later, the alleged victim retracted their accusation, leading to Cherwack's release. Thomas became a local hero, praised for his conscience and courage. When people asked why he did it, Thomas said it was simply his intuition. Even though the 13-year-old “victim” had made accusations and the defendant had failed a polygraph test, he felt intuitively that it was a “carefully arranged scheme,” and that the 13-year-old boy had fabricated the charges to prevent his mother from marrying the defendant.

In another case, a man was identified as a major suspect in a murder investigation, and all the available evidence seemed to incriminate him. However, a chance encounter led the investigating officer to witness the man making every effort to help an injured child. At that moment, the officer had a strong intuition that the man was innocent. He believed that someone so caring could not possibly commit such a brutal act against another person. Supported by this conviction, he conducted a more thorough investigation, eventually uncovering evidence that proved the man's innocence, leading to his exoneration.

It is said that Socrates once made a bet with a group of nobles, claiming he could get an uneducated young slave to articulate knowledge he had never learned. In front of everyone, Socrates engaged the eight-year-old slave in a dialogue, and astonishingly, the child was able to state the Pythagorean theorem. Socrates used this instance to illustrate that human wisdom is already hidden within each person's heart; the key is how to bring it to the surface.

Gauss, known as the “Prince of Mathematicians,” displayed remarkable intuition at a young age. When he was ten, his math teacher, Mr. Büttner, assigned the class the following problem: 1+2+3+4+5+…+97+98+99+100=?

As soon as the teacher explained the problem, Gauss quickly sent his slate with the answer to the front of the classroom. The teacher, without even looking at it, assumed that the youngest student had either submitted a blank sheet or written down random numbers. It was not until much later that another student brought the answer up to the teacher. When Mr. Büttner reviewed the answers, he was shocked to find that Gauss's answer was 5050, while the others were incorrect. Mr. Büttner, an experienced teacher, recognized that this was no ordinary event. After class, he bought a top-notch arithmetic book and gave it to Gauss, telling him, “You have surpassed me; there is nothing more I can teach you.” This story is well-known, but if we reflect calmly, it is astounding that a ten-year-old child, without any prior knowledge of summing sequences, could compute the answer so quickly and accurately. The reason lies not just in his strong foundation in mathematics, but also in his exceptional intuitive reasoning ability.

The Russian chemist Mendeleev spent a long time researching the relationships between chemical elements but was struggling to create the periodic table. He had everything planned out in his mind, but he just couldn’t get the table to come together. After three sleepless nights of intense thought, he collapsed on his desk and fell asleep. Unexpectedly, while dreaming, he saw the various elements perfectly arranged in their rightful places on the table. Upon waking, Mendeleev quickly jotted down the table he had envisioned in his dream, later discovering that it only needed one minor correction. Someone humorously remarked, “Let’s go to sleep with our problems in mind!”

Former U.S. President George W. Bush once told the renowned journalist Bob Woodward that intuition was a key reason behind his decision to go to war in Iraq, saying, “I believe in intuition; I act on instinct.”

Plato referred to intuition as the “eye of the soul.”

Prince Charles of England once said, “Deep within each of us lies our instinctual intuition. If we trust it, it can provide us with most of the reliable guidance we need in life.”

Intuition has several characteristics: “instantaneity”—it does not require a series of complex reasoning processes, but instead involves a sudden, intuitive insight into the characteristics or even essence of a matter; “sensitivity”—it can perceive certain intrinsic elements from complex phenomena, capturing the essence of things; “non-logicality”—it does not rely on concepts as intermediaries for judgment and does not require logical processes of concepts, judgments, and reasoning. Instead, it rapidly projects the “intuitive recognition pattern” onto the object of recognition, generating an “impression.”

Intuition tells me that this person is dishonest. “What’s the reason? There is no reason.”

I feel that this journey won’t go smoothly. “Why? For no reason.”

I feel like I’ve been to this place before. “Really? When?” I can’t quite say.

I feel like I’ve seen this person before. “Where? When?” I can’t be sure.

I have a good feeling about this place. “What exactly do you mean?” I can’t quite explain; I just have a good feeling.

Sometimes, feelings can be so real that they overshadow countless plans or rigorous logical reasoning. Knowledge, experience, and wisdom can sometimes seem insignificant in the face of intuition. I encourage everyone, whether it’s about making friends, choosing a career or workplace, traveling, or predicting the future, to first take a moment to feel it out and, if necessary, follow your intuition.